Progress

I think I have talked here before about our home study we are having done with with the worker who has done our other two home studies. I don't think I have told you all that last August we took the foster parenting classes required in Nebraska to become a foster parent. We completed the classes I think at the end of September or the beginning of October. We took the classes with a Christian based agency. In December they came out to our house to ask some questions and do the the last minute things needed to get our home study done and everything submitted to the state to get our license. One of the questions was weather or not we had found a church and we hadn't. I suspected that this would be a problem. Nothing was said that day other than they would be working on our home study and we should get our license shortly. In January we got a call from them stating that they thought we should transfer to another agency since we hadn't found a church and we didn't really know if we were going to either. That was fine with us even though we really liked everyone at that agency and really enjoyed working with them. There were no hard feelings when we left we were just ready to get our license and wanting to get everything transferred as quickly as possible. They suggested an agency for us to switch to so that is where we went. After the new agency got our stuff that we had completed we set up an appointment with the lady who would be working on our stuff. That is when we found out our home study hadn't been started by the first agency and that the new agency would have to come out and ask all the stuff over that is needed to write a home study. We were very disappointed that we had been led to believe that our home study would be done and actually nothing at all had been done on it. When we talked with the new agency they told us that they were very busy and that they really didn't know when our new home study would be done. They estimated by the beginning of April. We thought OK that is about two months away but we really don't have another choice. In the mean time we found out about two different babies that were available for adoption and we wanted to be considered for them. But we had to let the agencies know that we would have an approved home study. When I called the new agency about if they could get it done quickly they said there was no guarantee. That is the point where we decided to hire our original social worker to get another home study done on our own. We didn't really want to have to pay for another one but we also wanted to have a home study in case we were to hear about other situations of children that are available for adoption. That home study is very close to being done. Just one more meeting with the social worker and it will be complete. OK, back to the foster agency story. I called the new agency at the end of March to see how close they were to getting our stuff submitted to the state. I got the reply "Are you in some kind of hurry or something?" Well actually yes we are. We took many hours of classes, got physicals, background checks and divulged our lives in order to get licensed and that is what we want to happen. So I decided to give them some more time figuring that if we changed agencies again it would just drag it out longer and mean we have to start the process all over. I called again in April and was told again that they are really behind and they would get to it very shortly and it wouldn't take long. As you can tell we were about to just say forget it and not worry about doing foster care. Well I gave them some more time and called just a couple weeks ago and was told that our worker had been gone on medical leave for about a month and nothing more had been done on our home study. They also had no idea when it might get done. That is when we had had enough and contacted a couple other agencies to see about how far behind they were. Well we found one that now has told us once they get all our info they can have our home study done in about a week. So yes we have transferred again. We met with our new worker last night and it made us a little more optimistic that things are going to start moving forward. The lady was very nice and had a lot of information for us. She was also very positive about us being able to adopt from foster care which is our ultimate goal. We are also considering doing emergency care with them. She also thought maybe the state would not take as long on our stuff considering we have already adopted twice and we have been waiting for so long just to get licensed. I told Scott "I will believe it when I see it" We have been told that foster care is not something that is for everyone. That is so true but we haven't given up yet and hope that we will be licensed foster parents sometime very soon. We still continue to do respite care on the weekends for children in foster care and really enjoy it. We have one twelve year old girl that comes almost every other weekend and we love it when she comes. She is a great girl, loves our girls, and is just a great fit with our family. She will be with us this weekend and we always look forward to her coming. I will keep you all posted how things proceed since changing agencies again.